Ubuntu 8.10

[zwmalone]

Ubuntu 8.10 was released a few days ago.  How many of you who use Ubuntu have upgraded?  I thought about sticking with the LTS version, but I downloaded the ISO last night.
It seems decent actually, I can see stability improvements, and I like the new Darkroom theme.  It goes well with my LameDuck Challenge copies of Crossover Pro and Crossover Games:rolleyes:

[bigpook]

its ok. I did a fresh install of 8.10. There are some changes to nautilus and networking, but it seems to be more evolution than anything radical.
Ubuntu has always been very stable to me, linux in general has always been very stable for me.
I installed Kubuntu 8.10 on a a seperate machine just to check out KDE. Its looking pretty good. If you like eye candy then it is something you may want to look at.

needed to add that it is impressive to me that I can do a fresh install, from scratch and have s desktop in 25 minutes....

[zwmalone]

I had the low-latency kernel installed and a bunch of customizations, so I decided just to do a clean install.  It only took about 20 minutes from start to finish, but I kind of freaked out when the graph in the partition editor didn't show a swap file.

I prefer gnome to KDE, so kubuntu really wouldn't work out for me.

The only problem I have had so far is frglx won't install for some reason, so for right now Compiz is out.

[bigpook]

I started out with KDE years ago but have been running Gnome for the past few years. I have used XFCE on occasion but Gnome is just about right for me at this time.

I do the default install every time, as it works very well for me. Are you seeing a performance gain with the tweaks you are doing?

I don't have compiz running yet either, as I am lazy I will wait for Falko Timme to provide the perfect desktop cheat sheet.

[zwmalone]

Yes, major improvements are noticeable when using the right apps.  I installed the low-latency kernel from Ubuntu studio and a few other enhancements.  They finally fixed my main problem with Ubuntu, dual monitors.  I use 2 17" CRTs, and I would manually have to edit xorg to set the video card to use both the VGA and the DVI as independent display sources instead of mirroring them.  In 8.10 it just worked without having to do anything, so now I have 2 CRTs running at 1280x1024 each.

[iMav]

needed to add that it is impressive to me that I can do a fresh install, from scratch and have s desktop in 25 minutes....

No kidding.  I don't thing there is another OS out there that will have you up and running faster.

My 6 year old son and my 65 year old uncle both use linux exclusively.  I just converted one of my friends as well who was having horrible XP problems (and can't afford anything new...especially not a Mac)...so just threw a fresh copy of Ubuntu on his PC for him.  He's been happily playing WoW, browsing, email, and some heavy work with OpenOffice as well. (and he's never even touched Linux before)  That makes linux officially ready for the desktop.  

[iMav]

I have used XFCE on occasion but Gnome is just about right for me at this time.

FVWM (v. 1) used to be my WM of choice.  Long after FVWM v.2 was out and distro's stopped offering v.1, I would cart the source around and compile it manually so I could have my painstakingly customized desktop.

I think I finally dumped it once I went through a couple year love affair with IceWM when Gentoo was my distro of choice.  These days I simply throw up a default Ubuntu install and do some minor tweaks to Gnome.

[zwmalone]

I can't even play WoW with crossover because of the lack of a working frglx driver for 8.10 so for now I'm back on this.  I love having hotswap SATA drives

[bigpook]

I think that if you are looking for a better functioning install then the LTS release is the way to go. 8.10 is a bit bleeding edge. They changed xorg and networking in this release and it is annoying.
8.10 doesn't come with the latest openoffice but that may become available in the months to come.
Overall I am happy with it but I don't think I will be upgrading my servers to it.

[zwmalone]

7.10 ran fine on this system, 8.04 leads to random freezes when doing anything intensive, and 8.10 runs perfect except for the xorg problems, I'm gonna swap HDs again and run 8.10 and just wait for a fix.

[bigpook]

8.04 ran with no issues for me.
 8.10 will straighten out in a month or so.  Its worth the wait.

[bigpook]

 These days I simply throw up a default Ubuntu install and do some minor tweaks to Gnome.

Thats saying something. Years ago when I ran KDE, I would spend hours tweaking it. It was fun for me to do and I liked it. Nowadays, the default Ubuntu install is good enough. Never thought I would ever say that ....

[fkeidjn]

Ease and quickness of install and post-install setup is what had me make the switch to Ubuntu.  I still use XP on dual boot for a few minor things though, but I'm going to change that to virtualization.

[bigpook]

I have installed XP from scratch and its no fun. Haven't tried Vista, maybe its improved the experience?

[D-EJ915]

Installing Vista is a pain in the ass, the disk partitioner it has is absolutely braindead.  It took me forever to install it on my system when I had it because that damn partitioner was so broken, ughhhhh.

[itlnstln]

Really?  I found Vista almost accidently easy to install.  It actually installs faster than XP on the same machine.

[zwmalone]

I finally got a working ATI driver!  I had previously tried

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sudo sh /home/zachery/Desktop/ati-driver-installer-8-10-x86.x86_64.run  using the drivers from the ATI/AMD website (they didn't work) and I tried using the 'hardware drivers' panel in the system tab, but what finally worked was the simplest thing I didn't think of:

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sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx

[bigpook]

Do you have compiz running now?

[zwmalone]

Do you have compiz running now?

Yes I do, but I haven't really configured anything yet.  I have to remap everything to not use the "superkey" for my M.

[bigpook]

cool, I have a Nvidia card and just got compiz to work. I am baffled with the the new network manager tool. It works fine as the default which is DHCP, but I can't get it to work Manually. Have you run into that?

[fkeidjn]

Really?  I found Vista almost accidently easy to install.  It actually installs faster than XP on the same machine.

That's the thing with Vista.  Vista has compatibility issues for a lot of hardware, which is why a lot of people are complaining.

[itlnstln]

See, I think that may have been true at first (and that was a vendor problem, especially since they had plenty of time to write proper drivers), but I haven't seen a hardware issue of late.  I run a mixture of some dated and some new hardware, and I have not experienced issues (other than some Nvidia issues right at/before launch).  I have built other computers since then and had no issues at all.  I think that is any OS, though (maybe OSX as an exception), and, hopefully, that will improve with Windows 7 since the main archetecture will have been out for some time by then.  Of course, if you don't like Windows because it's Windows, that's a different story.

[zwmalone]

cool, I have a Nvidia card and just got compiz to work. I am baffled with the the new network manager tool. It works fine as the default which is DHCP, but I can't get it to work Manually. Have you run into that?

I haven't run into that yet, but I'm on a wireless connection with a static IP.

[bigpook]

I have a DHCP server running so 8.10  saw that during the install and picked up an address.
I go in later on after the install and manually set it to a static. Believe it or not, I am not able to do this.
If I go the NetworkManager and edit the Wired connection, If I change the connection from DHCP to Manual, the OK button is greyed out. Almost like I am not allowed to change it....

[zwmalone]

I have no Idea why you wouldn't be able to...

[bigpook]

yeah, I know, its weird. fricking linux.....

[iMav]

I have a DHCP server running so 8.10  saw that during the install and picked up an address.
I go in later on after the install and manually set it to a static. Believe it or not, I am not able to do this.
If I go the NetworkManager and edit the Wired connection, If I change the connection from DHCP to Manual, the OK button is greyed out. Almost like I am not allowed to change it....

Is there an "unlock" icon on the bottom right?  

[bigpook]

: ) I wish it was that simple, but strangely there is no unlock button at all.
Under IPv4 settings there are 5 methods and Manual is the only one where the ok button is greyed out.
I should post this on a ubuntu board and see what happens.

I am ok with the DHCP setting since it does work, its just odd to me that I can't manually assign an IP address....

[iMav]

I haven't upgraded any desktop's to 8.10 yet (perhaps I'll throw up a VM to see what you are talking about).  I'd probably just edit the /etc/network/interfaces file manually if it wasn't a mobile machine/laptop.

[bigpook]

wow. you are not going to believe this.

I am setting the IP address as Manual and enter the Address, subnet mask and gateway.
The ok button is still greyed out.

I resize the window !!! and the ok button becomes available.
I enter the DNS servers, and search domains.
Hit Ok, and then it prompts me for the admin password to make the change.
cool. linux, its more than an operating system. Its just plain strange at times.

[zwmalone]

That is very odd.  Linux is very finicky on windows positions and such.  Earlier today, for instance, I right-clicked and my menu in FireFox wouldn't pop up.  I found out after some frustration, that no matter what, my menu opened on my second monitor!  I restarted firefox and it still did it!  I ended up killing X and it worked right after that, go figure.

[bigpook]

I did a reboot to see if the settings would stick.
They do not stick.
Now there are 2 entries for eth0.
I do an ifconfig and its the DHCP server address that is showing.
This is just too weird.

I know that the NetworkManager is a new edition to 8.10, but I expected it to actually work....

[zwmalone]

An update may be coming soon: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/283233  LaunchPad has an entry for it in the bugs section, so hopefully it will get fixed.

[bigpook]

thanks, zwmalone. I am sort of happy to hear that others are being affected by this also : )
I will let it ride with DHCP, I am sure they will have it fixed soon enough. But it is kind of sad that they released 8.10 with a buggy network manager.

[fkeidjn]

See, I think that may have been true at first (and that was a vendor problem, especially since they had plenty of time to write proper drivers), but I haven't seen a hardware issue of late.  I run a mixture of some dated and some new hardware, and I have not experienced issues (other than some Nvidia issues right at/before launch).  I have built other computers since then and had no issues at all.  I think that is any OS, though (maybe OSX as an exception), and, hopefully, that will improve with Windows 7 since the main archetecture will have been out for some time by then.  Of course, if you don't like Windows because it's Windows, that's a different story.

I haven't installed Vista for long term use at all, since I hear it's so bloated and could have been so much less bloated.  I think this was a rushed attempt to give a preview of what Windows 7 is going to offer.  I'll wait and stick with my Ubuntu for now.

One thing to note about Ubuntu, although this is a Dell issue that's not going to be resolved at all, as this has been an issue for a long time now: the only time I had trouble actually booting up Ubuntu from the installation/live CD is on the Dell Optiplex 320.  Fedora couldn't even boot up either from the installation DVD.